Page 70 of His Obsession

“It’s nice to meet you, Elise,” Alan says. “I have heard amazing things about your work. I had the pleasure of looking at your latest project.”

“I thought… Did the client actually get it?” I ask.

“Yes. It was submitted. I went through the program to ensure it had not been altered since you had submitted it,” he says.

“So, the main reason we wanted to talk is because a letter of resignation had been sent from your email to me the morning of the… incident,” he says. “First, I need to know if that was you.”

“No,” I say tearfully. “I’m sorry.” Lucian wraps me in a hug, and I focus on his heartbeat for a moment to calm down before pulling back.

“Elise, you are one of the best software engineers that I have ever met. You might be young, but you are brilliant. Honestly, I don’t care if it was intentional. If you want the job, it is still yours,” Robert says. “You are on paid leave right now, so you can take however much time you need.”

“I can start back as soon as you want,” I say, wiping my face.

“What I want is for you to be sure that you’re ready,” he says. He sets a bag on the table, and I recognize it as the laptop bag that I left that day. “We replaced your laptop. I personally ensured that everything was transferred and that any trace of what he had done to it is gone.”

“What exactly did he do?” I ask.

“From the beginning, he has had a program installed that essentially cloned what you did onto another laptop. This gave him complete control to anything and everything you had. If it was logged in on yours, it was on the other as well. After submitting the program, he went into yours and replaced the files and sent himself a corrupt file. That, from what I understand, is how he got you to the office.”

“Yeah. I’m just glad I took the time to call Lucian,” I say. “How did he get away with no one knowing his last name?”

“Because after his background check, but before he started, he hacked the HR system and changed it. By the time he started, we had someone new working in HR, so it wasn’t caught,” he says. “Susan is a saint and figured it out luckily.”

“Yeah,” I say. “I’m glad Lucian didn’t let them think I ran off with him.”

“Mhmm. Susan was originally under the assumption that you two were having marital problems. Jake told her a few times that things were bad, but now we understand why he was saying that.”

“He was hoping no one would come looking for me,” I confirm.

“I am very sorry that this happened, Elise,” Robert says softly.

“You said you understood. How?” I ask.

“My daughter is your age,” he says. “She was kidnapped and raped by a drug dealer and his friends when she was sixteen. I was the one who found her tied naked to a bed. She had been beaten so severely that I hardly recognized her.”

“Is she okay?” I ask.

“April is great,” he says.

“April Kinsley?” I ask.

“Yeah. She got married when she was nineteen, so no one knew that she is my daughter,” he says. “I may not know what it was like by experience, but I can still hear her cries like it was yesterday. I know exactly what Lucian is feeling right now.”

“It’s a type of helplessness that makes you angry,” Lucian says. “You want so badly to turn back time and save them, but you can’t. You can’t make the memories disappear or the pain go away. It takes time, but time won’t move quickly enough.”

“Exactly,” Robert says. “Elise… Don’t force yourself to be normal again. The old normal is dead. You have to learn to face the world all over again, and I don’t want you to worry about your job. It will be here when you are ready.”

“Is there anything I can work on without a strict deadline?” I ask.

“Yes, actually,” he says. “Robert and I need help redoing the company software that everyone uses. After finding out how Jake was able to get past multiple checks, I want to start over. It will take as long as it takes, so you are free to go at your own pace.”

“I graduated less than a year ago,” I say.

“I know, but I know you are more than capable. All of our big clients trust you with their systems, so I trust you with mine.”

“Uh… Okay,” I say. “Just email me the plan and I can start messing around with things in the next few days.”

“Okay. At some point, I will need you to come into the office for an incident report, and with this project, it will be easier on all of us if you come in every now and again, but you are more than welcome to bring Lucian. I will get him to sign an NDA, then he can be there when we talk about the software.”

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